


Sunshine on Leith

by a_haunting_of_four



Category: Thor (Comics), Thor (Movies)
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, Loss of Parent(s), M/M, Mutual Pining, Requited Love, Step-Sibling Incest, liminal spaces
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:14:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26964280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_haunting_of_four/pseuds/a_haunting_of_four
Summary: Loki is standing just an arm’s length away, with an uncertain look in his eyes. Looking for all the world like had not expected Thor to turn around in the first place and unsure of what to do now.Thor makes the decision for him.-Eight years after their parents' divorce, Thor and Loki meet again in a crowded train station.
Relationships: Loki/Thor (Marvel)
Comments: 34
Kudos: 121
Collections: Thorki Baby Bang 2020





	1. the coast

**Author's Note:**

> Submission for the Thorki Baby Bang 2020
> 
> With beautiful art by hoekiodinson! <3 You can find it here It so very lovely and I am lucky to have been able to work with her this year.
> 
> Thank you R for helping me make sense out of this story and pointing out all of my atrocious mistakes.

It does not start all at once.

Thor had met Odin before, but not his son. Had not known to expect either of them that afternoon. Or to expect Loki at all for the first four months of his mother’s relationship.

His first impression of Odin had been that of an unremarkable if somewhat severe man. He had said little to Thor beyond the initial greeting and general small talk about his career plans, why he had chosen law over engineering, what work or volunteering experience he had on his short resume to boast of. It was more interest that he had gotten from previous dates and Frigga had seemed pleased, her hand resting gently on Odin’s instead of the crisp, white tablecloth of the dim restaurant they were dining in.

Thor had left dinner with the sense that he had passed some unspoken muster with Odin, and thought little of it afterwards. His mother had carried the rest of the conversation and Thor had been content to fade into the background, silently observing the seamless way in which Odin took charge. He had not gone as far as to order for his mother but he had chosen their drinks- sparkling water for the table, and a bottle of merlot- without asking for their input. Frigga had winked at him over the menu and Thor could only smile helplessly back at her, reassured that she was happy and willing as always to let her veto who she allowed into their life as much here as in any other situation.

Odin never mentioned a son.

It was their first fight, and had almost broken them up before taking off proper. Thor still remembers his mother pacing around her office at home, nail caught between her teeth. He never asked how his mother found out, or how they resolved the issue, and Frigga never said.

Even after the fight, Loki had been more of a concept in his mind. A bright young man that his mother seemed fond of, but nothing more. Thor had not even had a picture to go off on until the afternoon he walked into the living room and suddenly there he was. A brother.

Loki had been fifteen, wearing a pair of scuffed, grey high tops and a hoodie that seemed too large on his too thin frame. He had been sharing a loveseat with Frigga, sitting closer to her than to Odin even then, and looking up at Thor like he was still trying to decide whether he should glare or feign aloofness while Thor could only stand there and stare.

His brother.

He had only stopped by home on his way to pick up Jane for dinner and a movie because he had forgotten his wallet that morning. When Frigga had asked him if it would be alright with Jane if Loki tagged along with them it had not even occurred to him that he could have refused to bring him along, had already been planning to ask him to join them.

Loki had- eventually, reluctantly- gotten up and settled for hiding behind the uneven fringe of his hair as Frigga sweetly tried to cajole him into enjoying himself and Thor had tried to keep his expression even instead of smiling the way he wanted to.

The thing Thor remembers most about that night was the immediate sense of familiarity and how at ease he felt with Loki on the passenger seat behind him.

He had loosened up marginally as the night went on, and by the time they were having ice cream in a small parlour Jane liked he had been laughing freely with them.

It had been exciting to have him near, and a not-so-small part of him had been dying to impress him. Jane had nudged him once or twice over the course of dinner to rein him in and he had felt mortified each time, worried that he was coming off a little too strong. Loki did not seem to notice.

He _was_ bright, Thor had discovered that night. Sharp and expressive when he spoke, sweet underneath his strong opinions and hard edges. Thor had felt lucky to be able to sit between him and Jane, listening to them talk a hundred miles per hour about a poet they both liked. 

When Jane left early he drove them home taking the log way back to show Loki the wharf, windows rolled down to let the chilled ocean air in.

It had been the loveliest of first meetings.

In the end, they had not shared a house for long. Mostly over the holidays and for the year Thor spent working on his dissertation. He remembers long night working in the kitchen, Loki climbing down the stairs to join him when then house went still and dark.

They would sit together well into the next morning. Loki would bring his schoolwork, now and again, and a notebook he liked to sketch in more often than that.

Sometimes he would just sit across from Thor, watching him quietly. Asking questions when it looked like Thor was taking a break but keeping his thoughts to himself otherwise. Back then it had always struck Thor how different that Loki was to the Loki he would see only hours later. Who tense dup every time Odin walked into the room- quick to snap and find somewhere else to be when he stayed for long. Always tight lipped when he was on the phone with his mother. Thor had never caught him crying but he had come into the kitchen more than once with red rimmed eyes. He never pressed him on it or asked why, and is sore to remember that now.

Loki never brought his shiny new phone to the kitchen table, and Thor had never commented on that either.

In the dim light of the kitchen he was looser; the same boy who looked caught up in the pier lights as they blurred on their way home the first night they met. Easier with his smile. Comfortable enough to rest his head on his arms and listen to Thor type away on his laptop, and offering to look up synonyms for him in an old, beaten dictionary Odin had kept in his office.

More than once Loki had gone to pour himself a bowl of cereal only to find an empty carton of milk in the fridge from the last time Thor had used it in his coffee in an attempt to put some kind of food other than caffeine into his stomach. Each time he had wheedled an ice cream out of Thor and their evenings were spent at whatever odd book signing or concert Loki could dig up instead.

Hours on end that had been only theirs.

Thor guards these memories like the precious gift that they are, and keeps them close as he moves from kitchen tables to desks, to his own office at home after he graduates from university.

He came home one Summer to a half empty house.

His mother had sat him down at the kitchen table to explain, as calmly as she could, what had happened and to apologise for not calling to warn him. He had listened to her speak and lightly traced the bare patch of skin on her ring finger with a knot in his throat.

He had found Loki’s phone a shattered ruin in his empty bedroom, and had nothing else of his brother for eight long years.


	2. the station

The wind in Edinburgh cuts with a cold that Thor is unused to, slipping under the heavy wool of his coat. He has been coming up North more often as of late- his biggest clients are here, and there is only so much that he can discuss with them over the phone.

The station is crowded as the work day comes to a close and people rush past him, eager to make it home. Thor shifts in his uncomfortable shoes and squints his eyes, trying to make out the updated departures. He is starting to struggle with reading things at a distance, and knows he should probably do something about it.

Somehow he can never find the time.

He has a good twenty minutes before the next update, and Thor debates finding a seat somewhere versus queuing up for a coffee before boarding. The strap of his laptop bag is starting to dig into his shoulder, and he spares a rueful thought for the wheeled briefcase he shoved towards the back of his closet last Christmas.

He is stepping aside for a family of five to squeeze by him when he feels a hand press against his back. Assuming he just came close to knocking someone over, he turns around to apologise.

The first thing he sees are lovely green eyes and limp dark curls.

“Sorry, I--” The young man before him is wears a familiar face. His hand is still half raised, and it takes a split second for it to register in Thor’s mind that the touch on his back was deliberate.

“Loki,” Thor cannot help the bewilderment in his voice, doesn’t mean to cut him off.

Loki is standing just an arm’s length away, with an uncertain look in his eyes. Looking for all the world like had not expected Thor to turn around at all and unsure of what to do now that he has.

Thor makes the decision for him.

“ _Loki_ ,” he can feel his face starting to aches from how wide he is smiling.

Loki goes easily when he steps forward, arms wide, to pull him hard into his chest. He fits neatly into his arms and smells like something out of a half-forgotten memory. For a brief moment, Thor feels like is home again, Loki’s head resting on his shoulder as they watch the waves break on the coast.

He lets himself enjoy it until the strap of his bag slips from his shoulder and into the bend of his elbow.

“Sorry.” When he pulls away he is almost embarrassed by how much his eyes are stinging. He catches Loki blinking discreetly behind the curtain of his hair and his smile softens. It’s longer than Thor ever got the chance to see it, and he wonders how long he has been growing it out.

“What do you have in that thing?” Loki’s laugh is pleasantly deep. He reaches to slip the strap of Thor’s bag back on his shoulder himself with an easy kind of intimacy that settles warm in Thor’s chest.

“How are you here?” The knot in his throat is something sweeter than disbelief.

“I wasn’t sure it was you,” Loki confesses. “I almost walked past, your hair is so short.”

Thor can’t bring himself to let his right hand drop from where it is still grasping Loki’s shoulder. He brings it up to rest on the side of his neck instead, giving him a light shake.

“I’m glad you didn’t,” it makes Loki smile and him in turn. “How are you, weasel?”

“A little cold.” Loki ducks away from his hand good-naturedly and Thor lets him go with one last squeeze to his shoulder. “Was just about to head home when I saw you from the catwalk.”

It doesn’t look like he has any luggage with him, just a heather green parka that looks too thin for the weather. When an announcement comes over the intercom system he glances over Thor’s shoulder.

“I don’t want to keep you. If your train is leaving soon…”

“I have all the time in the world,” Thor reassures him, and he would miss any train to see the corners of Loki’s mouth twitch back into a smile.

“There’s a Costa around the corner, if you want to have a seat.” The way he stands straighter, even with his hands shoved into the pockets of his coat, lets Thor appreciate how they are practically of a height now. “My treat.”

Thor is so wildly happy that he has to resist the temptation to pinch himself.

He nudges Loki’s shoulder as they walk, steps matched with each other, and can’t help grinning when he gets a gentle shove back.

-

Loki’s order is more syrup and milk than coffee. He scoffs at Thor’s choice of plain black until he makes up the sugar deficit in baked goods, confessing sheepishly that he can’t have coffee and dairy the way he used to.

They find a quiet corner towards the back.

Sitting across from each other, Loki seems uncertain again, turning the mug of his drink on its saucer.

His clothes are plain and worn but well made, in dark greys. The colours suit him. The sleeves of his jumper are long enough that Loki can pull them over his knuckles and Thor fights the urge to reach across the table to uncover them.

“Your birthday was a week ago,” Thor realises, the knowledge sitting somewhere in the back of his head all these years, undisturbed.

Loki shrugs a shoulder.

“Last Thursday. I still say I’m twenty-one when anyone asks though. It never registered that I’m supposed to be twenty-four.”

“I’m still thirty most days,” Thor agrees. “How long have you been in Scotland?”

“Seven years.” Loki finally takes a sip and hums at the taste. There is a smudge of whipped cream dabbed onto his lip that disappears with a quick flash of a pink tongue. “I moved to Stirling for Uni at first, thought about applying to grad school. Stayed for work when that didn’t work out.”

“Seven years,” Thor repeats out loud for himself.

The couple sitting on the low couches to their left laugh at something on one of their phones and Loki’s eyes dart over to them.

“What are you doing for work, then?” Thor prompts him when the silence stretches.

“IT support at a law firm.”

“I never pictured you working at an office,” Thor muses.

“Neither did I.”

“I’ve thought about getting certified to do security work, maybe transition into working freelance,” he continues, stealing a bite of Thor’s caramel shortbread. “But I don’t hate my job. Or I don’t hate it yet. It helps that I have my own office and I don’t have to worry about Lauren from accounting using my mug or whatever Scott the intern brought for lunch three weeks ago and forgot in the fridge.”

“There’s that,” Thor chuckles and pushes the rest of the treat towards Loki. “I haven’t had to share a kitchen in a while, but I never remember to check the back of the vegetable drawer.”

“Who does?”

“Most people,” Thor teases. “Or so I’ve been led to believe.”

“Most people are lie.” 

“I leave mugs lying all over the house too.”

Loki’s lips twitch.

“And knives hanging over the sink on the off chance you’ll use them again?”

Thor nods solemnly.

“I don’t wash dishes on Sundays when I’m being lazy. Sometimes I even put the carton of milk back in the fridge when I know it’s empty.”

“I remember that much.” Loki is still teasing him but his smile dims.

The clink of Thor’s spoon sounds too loud against the ceramic of his cup when he sets it down. He places it on the table instead.

Loki is fiddling with the curled ribbon that came tied to the cellophane wrapper of one of the biscuits, a nervous tick. There is a small callus on the index finger of his left hand.

“Do you still draw?”

Loki blinks.

“In my free time,” he looks surprised that Thor would bring it up.

“I’m glad,” Thor nods, pleased. “You were always so good. I was a little jealous.”

“I was shit.”

“No you weren’t.” Ans he wasn’t. If they were not in public Thor would reach over to bury his hand in Loki’s curls and give them a gentle tug to make him groan. “I kept finding your sketches on the margins of the final draft of my dissertation when I was revising it. I printed a new copy so I wouldn’t have to hand them over to my advisor. I still have them saved in a binder at home.”

“You’re joking.”

“I liked them,” Thor says more firmly and smiles. “I’d love to see what you’re working on now.”

“They weren’t sketches,” Loki scoffs. “They were- they weren’t anything,” he corrects himself. “I thought you would erase them later.”

Thor shakes his head fondly.

“How could I?”

Loki lets the ribbon curl around his index finger.

His expression is hard to read. The pleased blush spreading across the bridge of his nose isn’t.

“How about you?” The table between them is narrow enough that Loki can nudge the side of his foot with his own. It’s a transparent attempt at changing the subject. Thor lets him, if only because Loki looks genuinely curious. “What are you doing for work? You haven’t said.”

“I’m a legal advisor,” Thor taps him back.

Loki hums his interest but bites his lip, and Thor can guess what he really wants to know.

“Is that all you’re doing these days?”

It’s the kindest way to ask, in a way.

“I took over the shop for a while,” he segues gently. “After mum died.”

Loki’s hands are very still, palms flat against the table. He keeps his fingernails short and Thor can see flecks of green polish near his cuticles.

“There was some backlog. Outstanding orders. New pieces she had added to the catalogue in the months before—-” he gestures with his hands instead of trying to work around the knot in his throat.

Frigga had been very clear in the instructions she had left behind for Thor, and he will be forever grateful for that. He doesn’t know how he could have coped otherwise.

“I still kept a few things,” he sighs.

Loki is biting down so hard on his lip now that Thor is afraid he will hurt himself

He is about to stand and go to him when they are interrupted by the couple from earlier gathering their stuff and shuffling by.

Thor tries to smile at them as he moves his chair aside to let them through and hopes it doesn’t look as much as a grimace as he thinks it does. Loki’s face is solemn when he turns his attention back to him. His bottom lip is a little swollen.

“I’m sorry,” his voice is almost a whisper. “I’m so sorry about Frigga.”

It is jarring not to hear Loki call her his mother. Thor wonders if he feels like he is not allowed to do so anymore or if he only shies away from saying it out loud.

“Thank you for the flowers,” he replies instead of opening old wounds. “They were lovely.”

They had come with a note, and a letter three pages long.

Frigga had spent an entire afternoon reading it and had come down for breakfast with her eyes red and puffy the next morning. Thor found it between the books on her bedside table, the creases worn thin. He had tucked them away by her favourite passage on her favourite book, and then tucked it away on his shelf.

He never read what Loki wrote.

Loki wonders if Thor knows how much the wrinkles around his eyes make him look like his mother when he smiles.

“Odin called when she got sick,” Loki finally says. “I hadn’t heard from him in a while. I didn’t even know he still had my number. I might not have answered if I had recognised his,” he clears his throat when his voice breaks and Thor’s heart clenches. “I didn’t know what to do.”

He turns his eyes down and wraps his hands around his mug, the sleeves back over his knuckles. He looks so very young to Thor.

“I should have called,” his voice breaks again.

Thor breathes deeply and gives them a moment to recover.

“She would have liked that,” he agrees, not unkindly.

Loki nods and it is another while yet before he speaks again. Thor gives him the space he needs and wishes desperately that he could call his mother just then. Imagines what it would be like to see Loki’s eyes light up at hearing her voice on the other side of the line. Imagines his mother’s joy.

“She spoke about you a lot before we met.” Loki’s smile is a small, private thing.

This is news to Thor and it must show on his face, because Loki’s smile widens.

“What did she say?”

Loki shrugs a little coyly.

“She warned me about you,” he teases and doesn’t follow it with anything else.

There is something frank in the way he says it and it that makes Thor want to ask. Something heavy in his eyes when Thor holds his gaze.

“She thought you were clever. It’s one of the first things I ever knew about you.”

Loki shakes his head but he is smiling.

“And you were. More than I could have ever imagined. I always felt a little slow next to you.”

“You were so much older,” Loki counters. “I felt like I was always getting under your feet. God,” he laughs. “I can’t believe they sent me on that date with you. Your girlfriend looked like she wanted to murder me.”

“She did not,” Thor objects with a peel of laughter.

“I have never been so uncomfortable in my life,” Loki continues with a dramatic sigh for effect.

“We had fun! She thought you were great.”

“She left before eight, Thor.”

Ah, well. There was that.

“It was a school night,” he tries. Loki shakes his head, smiling.

“It was Saturday, and you showed up for dinner and a movie with a stranger in your backseat.”

“I brought my new brother with me,” Thor shrugs. “Maybe I wanted to show you off, ever thought about that?”

Loki wonders if Thor knows how much that night had meant to him.

The hours before they met Loki had put all of his attention on chipping away at the black nail polish he had painstakingly applied that morning- and immediately regretted doing so the moment Thor smiled at him, moving on to picking at the edges of his nails instead.

He had spent the rest of the night wound up tight. Over aware of where he put his hands and how he sat. Irrationally afraid that he would make Thor dislike him because of how hard he had shut the car’s door or how he drank his water. Had tried so hard to seem older than he was and even harder to make it seem like was not trying at all.

He had wanted to flinch every time Thor’s girlfriend caught his eye across the table, sure that she could see straight through to the core of him. When she had made her excuses Loki had been equal parts relieved and mortified at being left alone with Thor.

What Loki remembers most of the drive home was the smell of brine and the way the wind whipped the loose strands of Thor’s hair.

Thor had led him down to the living room later that night and plied him with popcorn and a soft couch, trying to coax Loki’s shoulders down from his ears. He’d been to focused on that to catch Loki drying his sweaty palms on his jeans or weighing whether he should lie about his taste in movies in the hopes that Thor would want to do this again.

Their first night together was seared into Loki’s mind like the stuff of dreams. Thor had fallen asleep two movies into their marathon and Loki had been free to watch him from the corner of his as the light of the television painting them blue. Free to shift closer and rest his head against the couch pillow between them, wishing he would press the moment into amber for himself. Knowing that he couldn’t he had let himself pretend to be asleep when Thor brushed his shoulder just to hear him whisper his name again.

He had felt like he was floating as he let his brother usher him gently upstairs, where she slept under borrowed sheets with a pillow that smelled like Thor.

Loki had felt tremendously selfish afterward, having stolen those moments; unaware that Thor would have gifted them to him gladly and twice over if only he had known to ask.

In a quiet coffee shop, a lifetime away, Loki taps the heel of his boot against Thor’s and feels brave enough to ask now.

They leave each other to their drinks knees brushing beneath the table. Thor’s chair is still pulled closer towards Loki from when he shifted earlier to let the young couple pass, and neither of them have moved to change it.

“It was strange,” Thor breaks the silence, “coming home and knowing you wouldn’t be there anymore.” His cup is empty. He aligns the handle with a smudge on the plate. “I don’t think I ever got used to it.”

“Things had been getting bad for a while.” Loki sighs and he looks tired when he meets Thor’s eyes. “It’s a good thing that it ended when it did.”

Thor reaches across the table to cover Loki’s hand with his, his thumb brushing over silver.

Loki relaxes his hand and lets him take it.

His hands cold, fingers thin and pale next to his.

“I read the book you gave me. I didn’t at first,” he confesses, “but I did afterwards.”

He traces the curve of the snake ring on Loki’s finger.

“The first thing I thought about was this ring. I can see why you liked it so much,” he sits back, but keeps his hand cupped around Loki’s. The texture of the engraved scales under the pad of his thumb is familiar. “It was always such an unusual design; I’m not sure how mum came up with it.”

“If you want it back,” Loki sounds earnest, but Thor doesn’t let him finish the thought.

“No,” he refuses almost at a whisper. “No, it’s yours. It’s yours Loki.”

Loki doesn’t pull his hand away.

“It suits you.” It is so faint as to be easily missed, but Thor can tell there is a dip on his skin from years of wear.

He imagines a life where Odin did not take Loki away, and draws his hand away. Loki’s fingers brush his as he does, twitching like they want to pull him back.

“You always had a home with us,” he hopes that Loki believes him. “You still do.”

This time Loki is the one who reaches across the table, meeting him halfway. Thor turns his hand and lets their fingers slot together with a smile.

The time they have left together runs by in a blur after that.

When a young man in a uniform approaches them to politely ask them to leave they gather their stuff smiling, and hurry each other playfully along.

The station is near empty now, and Thor is convinced that he has never spent an afternoon with a lovelier man than his brother as he walks Loki to his platform.

It is not until they are idling by the open doors of the first carriage that Thor feels the first pang of something like fear in his heart.

He will have to watch Loki go without knowing for certain that he will see him again. They have learnt from the past, and have jotted down each other’s phone numbers and addresses but that does not stop his mind from spinning with possibilities.

Maybe he put down the wrong number and his calls won’t go through. Another great regret to carry with him. Maybe Loki will simply let the phone ring until the call disconnects and bring this to an end before it even begins.

It was Loki who ran across the station to find me, he reminds himself, and it sweetens the pain in his chest.

If Loki can think of him and call him brother, that would be enough. Even if their lives go on and never cross paths again, Thor had him for one more precious afternoon.

“Thor…” Loki trails off, a furrow between his brows. Thor wants to give him anything he might ask for to smooth it away; whatever he seems to be searching for on Thor’s face.

When Loki steps forward, it feels like the air around them has been turned to treacle, slowing their breathing and their movements as they come closer together.

They are less than a handspan away when Loki reaches for his neck, sliding his hand upwards until it is lightly framing his jaw. His fingers comb through the strands of the hair at his nape and Thor softens under his touch, lets himself be moved even closer, tilts his head with the brush of a finger against the shell of his ear.

Loki’s kiss lands on the corner of his mouth, lingering and sweet, and unexpected. Thor lets his eyes slip close and breathes deeply when they part. If he tilts his head their lips would brush and dovetail into another kiss.

Loki pulls away first.

“Thank you.”

The voice over the intercom barely registers until Loki steps away. Thor feels frozen in time, watching Loki skip over the last step. He loses a crucial second then, and the doors have already shut when Thor tries to step on board, mirroring his path reflexively.

He doesn’t waste another moment before he is moving, walking at first and the jogging down the platform, trying to spot Loki. When his bag slows him down he lets it slip onto the floor and does not spare it a second glance.

He catches up to him just as the train starts to move.

Their eyes meet across the glass and Thor wishes he had enough time to mouth all he wants to say before the train outpaces him and he has to jog to a stop, watching it rush away from him and feeling more winded than he should.

The corner of his mouth feels tender.

He is early to his train and spends a good hour into his journey lost in thought before he pulls out the book he packed for the long ride back to London and makes a valiant effort to focus on it. The strip of braided leather between the pages was a bracelet long before it was a bookmark and its edges are softened with use. He wraps it around his finger and lets the book close, trying to imagine Loki walking home through quiet streets and counting the miles that stretch between them. 

His phone lights up with a notification, still in his pocket, and Thor reaches for it with cautious hope. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed it please leave a comment and let me know <3 I've wanted to write this story for a long time and I'm glad I finally did. 
> 
> twitter: @honeyspice12  
> tumblr: @a-haunting-of-four


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